Grandma
Avamere at Sandy
17727 SE Langensand Road
Sandy, Oregon 97055
503.668.4199
June 2014
Hearthstone Beaverton
12520 SW Hart Road
Beaverton, Oregon 97008
March 2014
Rose Villa
13505 SE River Road
Portland, Oregon 97222
1.877.368.1361
Winter 2014
Smith College
Alumnae House Gallery
33 Elm Street
Northampton, Massachusetts 01060
Fall Semester 2014
US Bank
1040 NW Lovejoy Street
Portland, Oregon 97209
503.412.3420
September 2013
June 2014
Warehouse Cafe
3434 SE Milwaukie Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97202
503.206.5766
August 2014 - January 2015
In 2012 I lost my beloved Grandma Ivy. My grandma played an exceptionally important role in my life from my infancy until the day she passed. As a tribute to this dear woman, I created "Grandma," a portrait project that honors the unique bond between grandmothers and their grandchildren.
When I began photographing for this project, I was afraid spending so much time amongst grandmas and grandkids would cause my grief to resurface. In fact the opposite happened. Witnessing the deep, fierce love grandmas have for their grandkids was a salve for my grief.
To date I have photographed more than 40 sets of grandmas and grandkids from around the country - and even the world - and I continue to add to this body of work. The project is currently on display around the Portland-Metro area. If you are interested being part of this special project, please contact me for further details.
Press
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Future Smithies
Lake Oswego Public Library
706 4th Street
Lake Oswego, Oregon 97034
Summer 2011
Smith College
Alumnae House
33 Elm Street
Northampton, Massachusetts 01063
Spring Semester 2010
People who look at my work often ask, "How do you get kids to do that?" The truth is, I don't "do" anything. I listen and follow their cues. My goal is to capture their experience of childhood, not impose adult fantasies of childhood onto them. Parents often have deeply emotional responses to my work because they do not just see a likeness of their child but something deeper and more real.
In my years of working with children, both while earning my Master's degree from Lewis and Clark College in Child and Family Counseling and photographing children for seven years in Portland, Oregon, I have learned that childhood is many things. Foremost, childhood is vulnerable, it is fragile, and it is fleeting. Children, however, have particular tools they bring to this reality. They are smart, they dream, they ask questions, they are silly, quirky, and sometimes quiet. These are the places, the moments, where I find the resiliance, the strength, and the dignity of childhood.
The girls I photographed for "Future Smithies?" are not different than any other children that I have encountered in my work except that they are all connected to Smith College by their mothers, their aunts, their grandmothers or their great-grandmothers. I invite you to engage with these photographs and help me investigate what this connection means. This project is a work in progress. At this point it represents girls who live in the West, and despite my desire to photograph girls of color, this part of the project is undone.